Comparing the number of Division I freshmen entered in this year's NBA draft with those taken last season. Those without agents can return to school if they withdraw by June 16:

2008

School

Position

Jerryd Bayless

Arizona

PG

Michael Beasley

Kansas State

PF

Eric Gordon

Indiana

SG

Donte Green

Syracuse

SF

J.J. Hickson

N.C. State

PF

Davon Jefferson

Southern California

SF

DeAndre Jordan

Texas A&M

C

Kosta Koufos

Ohio State

C

Kevin Love

UCLA

F/C

O.J. Mayo

Southern California

SG

Anthony Randolph

LSU

SF

Derrick Rose

Memphis

PG

Bill Walker

Kansas State

SF

2007

School

Position

Draft position

Mike Conley Jr.

Ohio State

PG

4th pick

Daequan Cook

Ohio State

SF

21st pick

Javaris Crittenton

Georgia Tech

F

19th pick

Kevin Durant

Texas

SG

2nd pick

Spencer Hawes

Washington

C

10th pick

Greg Oden

Ohio State

PF/C

1st pick

Brandan Wright

North Carolina

PF

8th pick

Thaddeus Young

Georgia Tech

SF/PF

12th pick

A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT?

The NBA Development League is a minor league farm system that began as the National Basketball Development League in 2001. Before it debuted some critics wondered if it would keep the best high school players from attending college.

Russ Granik, then NBA deputy commissioner, sought to calm those fears at a 2000 meeting of the Knight Commission, a blue-ribbon panel of educators that presses for reform in college athletics.

Cedric Dempsey, then executive director of the NCAA, told Granik he hoped some players would go directly from high school to the NBDL.

"We have a number of athletes who come to school and have no intention of getting a college education," he said then. "They want to leave as quickly as they can. They showcase their wares and they're gone."

What he said then remains true, Dempsey says now -- except more so thanks to one-and-done, the NBA rule that players can be drafted after their freshman year of college.

"You get kids who have no intention of getting through school or learning," Dempsey says. "I don't think that's a healthy environment at all."

Jim Haney, executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, favors baseball's rule, in which players can be drafted out of high school but can't be drafted for three years if they choose to enter college.

"Some say that's self-serving, and to a degree it is for the coach," Haney says. "But if all our decisions were based on a few kids who are going to be stars in the NBA, we're sacrificing those who would benefit from going to college."

By Erik Brady

LEAGUES VARY ON ELIGIBILITY

Basic eligibility rules governing the drafting of amateur players by the various professional leagues:

NBA: Players who completed their high school basketball eligibility at U.S. institutions must be at least one year removed from the graduation of their high school class and be at least 19 years old in the calendar year of the draft.

Major League Soccer: A program called Generation Adidas, formerly Nike Project-40, encourages top players to give up some or all college eligibility and enter the draft. Players are eligible for educational grants in addition to MLS salaries. The league has signed players as young as 14 -- Freddy Adu's age when he started his pro career in 2004 -- and frequently draws from U.S. youth national teams.

NFL: A player must be three years removed from graduation from high school or graduation of the class with which he entered high school, whichever is earlier.

MLB: High school players who have graduated and have not yet attended college or junior college.

College players from four-year colleges who have completed their junior or senior years or are at least 21 years old.

Junior college players, regardless of how many years of school they have completed.

NHL: Players who turn 18 by Sept. 15 and are not older than 20 by Dec. 31 are eligible. In addition, non-North American players older than 20 are eligible. A North American player not drafted by age 20 is an unrestricted free agent. All non-North Americans must be drafted before being signed, regardless of age.

As of 2004, 18-year-olds from NCAA Division I schools can be drafted and retain college eligibility as long as they don't play for a pro team or hire an agent.

Doonesbury's Zonker Harris once called his time at Walden College "nine of the best years of my life."

O.J. Mayo may come to think of Southern California as the two best semesters of his.

The here-today, gone-tomorrow guard joins up to a dozen others who are leaving college after one season for next month's NBA draft, the third under the league's so-called "one-and-done" rule.

Previously, the NBA allowed players to be drafted directly from high school. Since 2006, draftees must be at least 19 years old and one year out of high school.

One and done is under increased scrutiny this week with the news that Mayo, according to an ESPN report, received about $30,000 in cash and benefits before and during his single season at Southern California. The report, which he denies, alleges runners funneled cash, clothes and a big-screen TV to him on behalf of BDA Sports Management, which denies involvement with Mayo before he signed with the agency last month.

David Price, head of NCAA enforcement, says the risk of under-the-table payments could go up when players know they will be in college for just one year.

But NBA Commissioner David Stern argues what's alleged in the Mayo case is simply the latest in a years-long list of incidents, often involving upperclassmen.

"All it proves is that those who would corrupt the system are equal-opportunity corrupters — from freshmen to fifth-year seniors," Stern says.

"The number of colleges that have been disciplined because of gifts to players — upperclassmen in every sport — is a book unto itself. So the hysteria over one series of allegations with respect to a freshman is misplaced."

NCAA President Myles Brand thinks the Mayo case has led to "not just an overreaction but an exaggeration" of the problems with one and done. He thinks the great benefit is "hundreds, maybe even thousands, of young men each year who are now taking their high school studies more seriously rather than thinking, 'I can blow off high school and go right into the NBA.' … That's going to put them in good stead for their lives."

Brand thinks the focus on the Mayo case is "really a skewed perspective. … It's getting a lot of visibility for the time being until another news story hits the 24-hour cycle. I think it misses the point about what's really important … the value of the education that (other) young men (are getting) even if a few game the system."

No other one-and-done player since the rule change stands accused of accepting money from an agent or runner.

"If the allegations are true with O.J. Mayo, it's unfortunate," Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt says. "But do not use that brush to paint everyone who has taken that route."

The route — college as one-season farm team — is criticized by many academics as making a mockery of the classroom.

"A university is a place for education, not for merely showing off athletic wares and then leaving," says Alan Hauser, president of the Faculty Athletics Representative Association. "That makes it like a minor league sport where a (player) reads a book now and then."

Jim Haney, executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, prefers Major League Baseball's rule, which allows players to be drafted from high school but says they must wait three years if they go to college.

"A kid takes one semester of college work and in the spring semester, he's putting his name in," Haney says of one-and-doners.

"I'm not condemning the young student-athlete who is at that level athletically," Arizona athletics director Jim Livengood says. But "we're talking one semester, the fall semester," that one-and-done players take seriously.

That "has bad consequences for student-athletes" and colleges, says Hauser, faculty athletics rep at Appalachian State. If players "had to complete three or four years, they know they're going to have to do academic work to stay eligible. … The rule, as it now stands, doesn't do a whole lot of good for anyone."

Gary Roberts, dean of the Indiana University law school, thinks the rule is good for most parties.

"Is it good for the NBA? Apparently so, because they have" it, he says. "Is it good for the college game? I think it's good for the college game to have a Kevin Durant, or that caliber of player, even for one year … rather than not at all.

"Is it better for the kid? There's probably a tiny percentage of kids who would be better off if they could quit the pretense of being a college student and go straight to the pros, but I'm not sure if the NBA should make its rules based on a tiny handful of kids who are going to eventually be in the NBA anyway."

NBA compromised with union

The NBA wanted a two-years-out-of-high-school rule when it negotiated with the NBA Players Association in 2005. The agreement runs through 2010-2011.

"Our ask was for two," Stern says. "Our settle was for one. … This was a collectively bargained point that we thought furthered the business interest of the NBA. … We did it for the simple reason that we wanted our teams to have the opportunity to see a more developed basketball player before they expended a draft pick and wanted them to have an opportunity to sign a player who was more developed in his personal life."

Stern does not say directly if he will push for a two-year rule in the next collective bargaining agreement but does not douse speculation that he will. Brand says he "has certainly made it clear" the NCAA hopes for that, though there is no way of knowing if the players association would accept it.

"The NCAA has no role whatsoever to play in the age-limitation rules in basketball or any professional sport," Brand says. "That's bargained between management and labor (and) we live with" it.

"The rule benefits the NBA and the young man more than college basketball," Hewitt says, but its impact on colleges "is negligible."

Young was in the first class affected by the NBA rule. Had it not been in place, "I probably would have done what all the other guys did and made the jump," Young says.

He's glad he didn't. "I would have been picking splinters out of my butt" in the NBA without the preparation he had at Georgia Tech. "I probably wouldn't have been a major contributor as I am now." Here's what he did for the Philadelphia 76ers: 21 minutes, 8.2 points and 4.2 rebounds in the regular season; 26.7 minutes, 10.2 points and 4.5 rebounds in the playoffs.

Young believes Brand is right that the rule makes high school players take academics more seriously. "It makes a lot of guys keep their grades up," he says.

Ohio State athletics director Gene Smith says he has no problem with the one-and-done rule and disputes the notion that it compromises a school's or the NCAA's academic standards. He calls it "a fallacy" to suggest players who know they will be on campus for one year can't be true student-athletes.

"I think at Ohio State, the people we had in our program are better off because we had them," Smith says. "There are always the Greg Odens of the world who, in all likelihood, wasn't going to return. But he was a great student. He was a great person. He contributed greatly to our campus culture. …

"I can go through each kid we've had. … They learned a lot. They were students; all of them made 3.0s or better. … For us to think that institutions at our level in basketball are just going to turn our backs on that type of athlete, I just don't think that's realistic."

Smith says Oden and Conley are enrolled in summer classes at Ohio State.

Arizona's Livengood, whose school is losing freshman Jerryd Bayless to next month's draft, disputes the argument that players benefit, academically or otherwise, from a single year in school.

"It becomes disruptive for the individual," he says. "It becomes disruptive for the team. And the biggest thing, in my opinion, is it really becomes disruptive for the institution, for your faculty, for your administration. … We're really doing a disservice to our institutions, to our programs and to the young person. I'm not smart enough to figure it out, but there's got to be a better way."

"It's not perfect," the NCAA's Brand says. "And there are some issues that schools and individuals and we, to the extent we have control, should be trying to resolve.

"But we would be foolish if we would give up this opportunity to motivate young men to do better in school — high school and college — because of one or a few persons."

More rule-breaking?

Alabama law professor Gene Marsh, a member of the NCAA Committee on Infractions, thinks the one-and-done rule can lead to the sort of rule-breaking alleged in the Mayo case. He says schools routinely hold compliance meetings for various teams at the start of each school year.

"You hear the message that you need to follow the rules because not only can you mess yourself up, you can run the institution into the ground," Marsh says. "Well, if somebody's only looking at a one-year window of time … they don't think they have much invested in the institution.

"They don't really worry too much about what they're leaving behind if what they're going to do is basically be in camp a year, then blast off to the NBA. To me, it's just logical. … It's just human nature."

Ohio State's Smith thinks one-and-dones are no more susceptible to rules violations than others.

"The issue of … young people who come to college basketball with their eye on the next level and are influenced by others — advisors, agents, runners, whoever — that's every day," Smith says.

"I understand why we're talking about it. But one-and-done is not, in my estimation, the problem. The problem in basketball is deeper. It has been in place for quite some time. I think we all know that."

Doonesbury's Walden College once instituted a sort of three-and-done rule, deciding to admit high school juniors without benefit of a high school diploma.

Zonker Harris savored his nine years at dear old Walden. Even after graduating against his will, he never did find out what his major was.

Mayo did. According to the Trojans' media guide, he was, however briefly, a business major.

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Recent allegations that O.J. Mayo received cash and benefits before and during his one year at Southern California have put the NBA's one-and-done rule under the spotlight. Mayo denies the allegations.

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